CRAWFORD NOTCH, N.H. -- Bradford Washburn is speaking. On the wall is a black-and-white photograph of the imposing north face of Alaska's Mount Huntington. Its slopes are treacherous and loaded with gullies, each casting its own shadow.
The gravel-voiced Washburn says, ``Here again, I was lucky, lucky, lucky."
A climber, explorer, scientist, mapmaker, and photographer, Washburn was also director of Boston's Museum of Science for more than 40 years. He is in love with mountains, be they in the Alps, Alaska, or New Hampshire .
It is fitting to view Washburn's photographs of mountain peaks here at the Appalachian Mountain Club's Highland Center atop rugged Crawford Notch. Nearly 30 of his works -- labeled the Brad Washburn Mountain Photography Exhibit -- are on display in the Brad and Barbara Washburn Room of Thayer Hall , a former carriage house.
Developed by Waltham's Panopticon Gallery, the exhibit, which will run indefinitely, includes photographs from Washburn's travels around the globe. Through a portable audio player, Washburn, 96, who lives in Lexington, tells the stories behind the photos. He points out details that casual viewers might miss, like a tiny military helicopter at the base of an Alaskan peak or a second , nearly hidden climber under a French alpine summit.
The photographs were largely taken for research purposes, to help plan explorations during Washburn's pioneering days of climbing and cartography. Frequently he would carry the pictures as a reference guide. But the photographs also preserve nature's glory while revealing man's vulnerability in the alpine landscape.
One image, ``After the Storm," shows six climbers on the east ridge of the Doldenhorn in the Swiss Alps in 1960. Their footprints trail them in the snow. They are but dots on a giant canvas of mountain, snow, and clouds, isolated and entirely on their own.
Washburn took many aerial photographs, largely snapping away as his plane flew over the landscape, leaving much to happenstance in terms of timing and even light. In 1938, a low-altitude pass over Miles Glacier in Alaska found Washburn in the right place at the right time as a huge chunk of ice calved off the glacier to create an iceberg, complete with ripples in the once calm sea.
Washburn's shot of the striations of mineral deposits on Alaska's Barnard Glacier is a geologist's delight.
His passion for the Presidential peaks of New Hampshire is also evident. Tuckerman Ravine is a well-known spring skiing mecca, the skiers having hiked there with their gear on their backs. Washburn captures the magnificence of the ravine and the looming summit of Mount Washington in a shot from 1937.
The beauty of the Washburn exhibit is that it showcases some of the world's most treacherous mountains from the camera of a man who was instrumental in their exploration .
Contact Marty Basch, a freelance writer in New Hampshire, through his website at marty@martybasch.com. 
